The 2024 AFI Film Festival has been a blast so far, seeing incredible films from outstanding directors and actors. Today, I continue my festival coverage with Academy Award winner Amy Adams and Nightbitch and David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds.

An artist who pauses her career to be a stay-at-home mum seeks a new chapter in her life and encounters just that, when her nightly routine takes a surreal turn and her maternal instincts begin to manifest in canine form.

Marielle Heller has an authentic and mesmerizing way of telling stories about humans. In Nightbitch, she tackles the idea of motherhood, how it transforms women, and the expectations around them. I love how she did it in a way that was unique and fresh but very raw at the same time. It’s one of those films that should bridge the gap between the older and newer generations. All men with this specific way of thinking should watch this and understand how to empathize with their wives and mothers of their kids.

Amy Adams is one of the best working actresses, but we’ve seen her in some movies where some people have lost sight of this. That said, Adams is back to her roots, delivering a powerful and moving performance about being trapped in the world of being a mother. You can tell the role meant something to her as a mother herself. She leaned into the craziness, which was amazing to see, but also the rawness, and it’s one of the year’s best performances.

Nightbitch is one of the wildest rides you will witness this year, but at the root of it all, you have an authentic portrayal of women and the expectations of motherhood. It also features a beautiful look and insight into marriage with an empathetic performance from Scoot Mcnairy. I really enjoyed this quite a bit.

Karsh, 50, is a prominent businessman. Inconsolable since the death of his wife, he invents GraveTech, revolutionary and controversial technology that enables the living to monitor their dear departed’s corpses as they decay in their shrouds. One night, multiple graves, including that of Karsh’s wife, are desecrated. Karsh sets out to track down the perpetrators.

Nothing makes me more angry as an avid film watcher than a film that has all the potential in the world but is let down by poor execution. That is how I felt about The Shrouds. The premise is fantastic, as Cronenberg looks at death in such a unique and fresh way. However, as you unpack the story through these characters, it veers off the rails.

You are bound to get weird with David Cronenberg, and not many directors do weird as well as he does. There are elements of the weird that work with this movie, and the idea of being able to watch a loved one in the grave is definitely quite weird. That said, the idea and the connection it would have to someone after they pass makes it real. Again, groundbreaking stuff from Cronenberg.

Unfortunately, from here, it just feels like he tries to do too much with the characters. Vincent Cassel is brilliant, dare I say perfect, as Karsh, but Cronenberg’s writing lets him down with the path he chooses to send this character down. Karsh’s story lacks a sense of direction throughout the second act and forces a disconnect with the viewer. As a result, I didn’t feel a rooted interest in what was transpiring.

Overall, The Shrouds is one of the biggest disappointments of the festival. I love David Cronenberg, and I feel he got caught too far in the weird to allow breathing room for his story to come to fruition. If you are a fan of Cronenberg, you may like this, as many of my colleagues have, but this might be one worth waiting for VOD.